Graduation Weekend

As of yesterday, I added "J.D." to the end of my name! I officially graduated from law school, and I am so excited! I will really miss my friends, but I also could not be happier about moving on to the next step. I finally finished my last exam on Wednesday, and then had a couple of senior dinners/ luncheons/ etc. at the end of last week, and then the commencement ceremony yesterday.

I'll just tell the story with a bunch of pictures:

And these are a few "senior photos" that my dad took of me the night before graduation:

At the senior dinner, I won an award from the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers for excellence in family law:

Such a great weekend with family and friends!

The People You Meet in Law School

Yesterday, I just finished my LAST LAW SCHOOL CLASS EVER. And I could not be happier about it! These last two weeks have just dragged on and on and ON and been so busy and crammed with huge assignments, receptions, banquets, and senior events that I haven’t had time to breathe. And now, it’s 10:00 on a Friday morning and I am sitting in my pajamas writing this blog post, and I don’t feel guilty about it either. Sure, there’s stuff I could be working on (such as studying for my torts II final exam) but I need a break first.

So I decided to write a fun post this morning about the people you will definitely meet in law school. Based on my experience, I’m pretty confident that every law school class has at least one person fitting these descriptions. (And last night’s senior superlative night got me thinking about these. What did I win? Most likely to become a legal writing professor. Fair enough, because that’s probably true!) So without further ado, here’s the list:

1) The person who KNOWS EVERYONE and IS FRIENDS WITH EVERYONE. You can’t go anywhere with them without them running into TONS of people that they know and want to talk to. If you go out for dinner with them, you’ll end up having dinner with half the town. And if they don’t know anyone, they’ll just strike up friendships with strangers. They also have to make sure that their social life always one-ups everyone else’s and that no one has friends that they are not also friends with. And you’ll think that you FINALLY know your own group of people that they don’t know, and they’ll start making up ways that they know them too. “Oh, Stacy? Isn’t she the one that’s dating [insert name of annoying dude who graduated last year]?” Like, no! I’m pretty sure you do not actually know who Stacy is!

2) The person who takes photos of any car in the student parking lot which they judge to be improperly parked, uploads the photos into their computer, and sends them out in emails—with disparaging comments about the cars’ drivers—to the ENTIRE student body. Way to abuse email privileges, Mr./ Ms. Parking Police.  

3) The girls who skip class ALL the time, for any reason, and when they do show up, are adorned with their perfectly manicured nails and never fail to have a pumpkin spice latte/ iced coffee on hand.

4) The guy who wastes class time with ridiculous and farfetched hypotheticals—“Well what if you push the guy off the hotel balcony, but before he hits the ground and meets his certain death, he is shot mid-air and killed by a sniper? Who is responsible for killing him?”

5) The enigma—the person who is never on campus and is pretty much never seen, and occasionally you hear stories of someone having had a class with him/ her, but ultimately you’re pretty sure they don’t even go to your school. And all you really hear about them is that they’re taking off for Colorado or California or New York or some other distant locale immediately after graduation. The enigma is probably writing the next John Grisham novel in their spare time and is going to be famous long before anyone else will.  

6) The people who take their student organization waaaay too seriously and email the student body constantly about their club’s events and sell their club T-shirts constantly and don’t really do anything else but that one group or organization.

7) The guy who never takes class—or anything else—seriously, never reads, is never prepared, and gets everywhere on humor and good looks.

8) The person who studies ALL the time, gets 99’s in pretty much every class only because our school doesn’t give 100’s, and is going to get an A+ on the bar exam even though it’s pass/ fail.

9) The person who does NOT know when they've had enough to drink and who makes a fool of him/herself as a result . . . regularly. At first it’s kind of funny, but after awhile you wish for their sake that they’d get it together and start being more responsible. Because in the real world, “But I’m soooo hungover” is NOT an excuse.

10) The super-athletic girl who’s always wearing head-to-toe Lululemon and drinking protein shakes and going on the paleo diet and joining weightlifting competitions and running like 50 miles a week.

11) The person who blows up your Facebook news feed with one political post after another after another, as if reading the link they post is actually going to change your mind about your political views.

12) The person who’s the rare combination of both an atheist AND a proselytizer…their life goal is to convince everyone why religion is stupid and the bane of human existence and why God doesn’t exist and why you shouldn’t believe. Don’t you have anything better to do with your time?

13) The superhero people who juggle law school, families, their own businesses, or other major pursuits besides just school and still manage to do well with all of it. Do they ever get to sleep? We wonder.

14) The people who never really moved on from being in undergrad. You’ll know what I mean if you ever go to law school. 

15) The person who has dated not only everyone at the law school, but everyone in town between the ages of 22 and 30. And apparently, because it ended badly with pretty much ALL their exes, there's a loooong list of people they can't talk to or be in the same room as. Unsurprisingly, this person is usually the same person as #9.

16) The girl who is impossibly together. She gets great grades and runs for miles every morning and always looks like she stepped off the cover of Vogue and always has time to socialize. How does she do it? 

Well, that's all I've got for now (although there are many more). Happy Friday!

In the Home Stretch!

This is one of my very last Mondays of law school! We only have four weeks of class left before graduation, so we are officially in the home stretch. Oh, and only one more Moot Court practice EVER. Can you tell I'm excited? I'm just burned out on it--we've been doing it since November and I am so ready to be done. But my school will send our team of 3 to compete next week in Chicago, so we are all still meeting regularly to help them get ready.

I am also about to be done with my writing portfolio (due tomorrow at 3pm), which means I'm about to be done entirely with my advanced legal writing program! (Also very exciting). I will then have one paper, one exam, a divorce mediation "notebook," and a few advanced litigation drafting assignments left to do. I still have about 30 law review assignments to do, and our work on that is expected to extend far past graduation, but I'm doing those assignments literally at a rate of one per day right now just to get them to publication faster and minimize the work we have to do after graduation, because I will need to be studying a bare minimum of 55-60 hours a week for the bar exam all summer as it is. Anyway, I am so ready to be done with school. Don't get me wrong, I have absolutely loved my time here and would say without hesitation that law school has been a great experience for me, but I am just ready to wrap it up and see the reward for my efforts already! Also, between weddings, admissions recruiting events, client counseling practices, travel, Moot Court elections, and so forth, I haven't been able to take a Saturday or Sunday off in weeks, so I've been going for at least three weeks without a single real day off. This past Saturday night was my first evening to even be at home in almost two weeks, so I'm seriously craving a couple days where I have nothing to do and nowhere to be. But I am going to visit my parents for a long weekend in NC this weekend, and I am planning to leave all my books and manuscripts and other stuff here and just not even worry about it from Thursday night to Monday morning, because I just need to get away, and nothing is going to fall to pieces if I am not here working for three and a half days.

In other news, I've been making smoothies obsessively over the past few days with all kinds of fruit, yogurt, and vegetables and am considering going on a smoothie detox/ juice fast for a couple of days. My favorite combinations so far:
1) frozen raspberries, flax, fresh pineapple, banana, a squeeze of real maple syrup (which I happened to have on hand for another recipe I was trying), Greek yogurt, and milk--this was delicious and every bit as good as any smoothie you'd pay $5 for at a coffee shop.
2) bananas, natural peanut butter, and milk--at first, I put Greek yogurt in this one too, but I realized that Greek yogurt and peanut butter don't taste good to me when they are together. So I'd just go with the peanut butter next time.
3) frozen raspberries, a Clementine orange, fresh mint, lots of lettuce, a squeeze of lemon and lime juice, honey, and water--this one has a very intense flavor but is also very refreshing. If you put way too much lemon juice in at first like I did, you can fix it by adding a bit more honey. This is also SO nutritious and proved to be a good option to drink after my workout today.

I also had a huge, unexplainable craving for buffalo chicken dip today, so I whipped up a single-serving version of this recipe and it was so good. I also found salmon on sale and am planning to do maple-glazed salmon with brussel sprouts later this week based on a recipe in Women's Health (hence the maple syrup), so I'll have to let you know how that turns out.

Anyway, I'm off to go wash my dishes and clean my apartment a little and work on law review and then I am putting on my pajamas, watching a movie, and going to BED. Happy Monday!

Senioritis

I officially have senioritis right now and zero motivation to do any school stuff, or just generally be responsible. The weather has been freezing cold and rainy all week long, and it makes me want to do nothing but curl up on the couch, read novels, and watch movies. All I've really been focused on for several weeks now is job search stuff, networking, applying, and interviewing, and I'm just so ready for it to be over and to know where I will be living and working in August. Applying and interviewing for jobs is a lot like going on one first date after another after another, and constantly putting your best foot forward with people you've never met, who could massively affect your future, is totally exhausting after awhile. I think constantly grappling with the unknown is really what's so draining. I certainly believe that it will work out and God is leading me the entire way, but I still don't like not yet having any life plan after July 30th when I finish the bar, because I am a huge planner and I like to know. Carrying around that weight of the unknown gets very heavy after awhile, and I can't tell you how relieved I will be when it's all said and done, hopefully sooner rather than later. But along with that, on the brighter side, I'm constantly thinking and daydreaming about what I could be doing and where I might live and what kind of new place I might want to get and just in general what it will be like to finally be a real lawyer. (The picture I always have in my head is living in a huge city, running around my high-rise office building in heels and a power suit, going to court on a regular basis, going out for margaritas after work for happy hour, taking evening Japanese classes--or something like that--at a local university to keep my mind sharp, volunteering, hosting classy dinner parties and backyard barbecues, and going to art museums and little coffee shops and music festivals and thrift stores and brunch with the girlfriends on the weekends). I am SO excited to start my new life and embrace real working adulthood and start pursuing some new adventures, and I can't wait to keep you all posted on what all happens as I move forward. But that said, I am having such a hard time staying on track and focusing on classes and law review responsibilities when I have graduation and exciting new opportunities right around the corner, and even just in the next few weeks, like my trip to Oklahoma in two weeks to compete in the national client counseling competition with my teammate and best friend, and my friends' wedding next weekend, and spring break, and my best friend from college coming to visit me in April, which is going to be so fun.

But alas, even this blog post is just me procrastinating about writing my family law seminar paper, so it's back to work for me . . .

Back in the Swing of Things

And suddenly, the semester is back in full swing and I'm every bit as busy as I was last semester. This week's to-do list includes things like:

• do laundry ASAP (actually, this has reached the level of an emergency situation. I needed to do it 5 days ago. Now I really, really need to do it.)
• work on my divorce mediation notebook
• start the crash course in First Amendment law before the client counseling competition and start helping to coach the 2Ls in how to conduct the client counseling session
• finish editing globalization and trade manuscript
• email multiple people to set up informational interviews
• prepare direct examinations for trial practice
• prepare petitioner's argument for Friday's moot court practice
• speed-read the Fair Labor Standards Act section of as many of the 200 team briefs as I possibly can before competition in one month
• join a small group at church
• do a few final runs to prepare for Saturday's 5K 

And I could go on, but you get the idea. But even though I sometimes wish I had more time to sleep and/ or watch TV, I 100% prefer running around to meetings and classes and the gym and working on projects all day to sitting around bored (as was the case over Christmas break). Right now, I'm also on a mission for the next few days. There's an attorney who works about an hour and a half away from here that I'm dying to meet because we have both my undergrad and my law school in common, and I feel strongly that he will be a great resource for me in getting a job, so I emailed him last night to ask if we could meet. I then found out in a semi-stalkerish fashion that he's running the same 5K as me on Saturday, so now I'm determined to meet him on Saturday. I just sense that he is a resource I don't want to miss out on in my job search, and that he could, and will, help me a lot. I know that meeting important people for coffee to discuss careers after you've both run a 5K and could use a shower is not really how you're supposed to network, but I feel like it's how I'm going to do it anyway! Updates to come soon. 

Law School Bucket List

So I just got back a little while ago from this joyful, laughter-filled catch-up coffee date with one of my best friends, who I only saw once all summer as we worked in different cities. I feel like every time we get together, the conversation is full of ridiculous and hilarious stories dating from our childhoods to the present, lots of confessions that start with "so I've never really told anyone this before, but . . . " and hopeful discussions of all our aspirations for the future. We moved from Starbucks over to Panera for dinner because we literally talked for about 6 hours. She was going to use some of the time to study for the MPRE exam next week, but, oh well, that will have to happen another time! I am feeling so blessed right now to have such a great friend in my life.

We started talking about everything we want to accomplish in our last year of law school, because our time here runs short as we see graduation on the not-so-distant horizon. We came up with SUCH a great 3L bucket list/ goals list. Some of them are her ideas, some are mine, and some of them (#1 and #3, anyone?) are never going to actually happen. But they might. So here's our list:

1) Go skydiving. I mean, there's a place we can do it that's only an hour and a half away.

2) Volunteer at a local soup kitchen.

3) Join the local all-women's roller derby team.

4) Volunteer at one of the local Habitat for Humanity events.

5) Take every advanced skills course we can possibly take (I'm thinking advanced litigation drafting, advanced civil procedure, tort law seminar, pretrial practice, and divorce mediation. Now that I'm pretty sure I want to do trial law and domestic relations/ personal injury work, I have a much better idea of the classes I need to be taking).

6) Go to trivia night at the Mellow Mushroom. This is what all the cool people are doing.

7) Invest significant time and energy into building strong friendships with the 1L and 2L students, and into mentoring them, giving them advice, and ministering to them. Be one of those people that the younger students look up to, trust, and confide in.

8) Go regularly to high-intensity training and Zumba classes on main campus.

9) Get up early and go running downtown on a regular basis.

10) Volunteer at the local adoption agency/ crisis pregnancy center.

11) Keep getting as much job experience as possible. We decided that developing practical lawyering skills was a lot more important than grades, although ideally, we'd do well with both.

12) Go to local bar events and network without being awkward. (This is going to be hard, because we are two of the most awkward people EVER.)

13) Get in shape and become those people who can do, like, 60 pushups in one minute.

14) Run a half-marathon.

15) Embrace leadership positions in various student organizations that we're involved in.

16) Go to her family's lake house for a weekend.

17) Actually look cute and make an effort when we're on campus. There have been times when I go days on end without wearing makeup/ doing anything with my hair, especially during finals, but this year, I just kind of want to look pulled together!

18) For me: ask the cute guy I met last week out on a date already.

So that's some of our ideas for the year ahead . . . I'll keep you all posted if we make any progress on this list!

I Have No Idea What I'm Doing.

Yeah, that's the way I feel every day at the firm! And honestly, I want to just shoot straight with our clients and tell them exactly that instead of beating around the bush and faking like I know what I'm talking about. Because I don't. I never know what I'm doing, but slowly but surely, I'm starting to learn. Thankfully, I not only can preface any statement to clients with this disclaimer, but am also technically obligated to tell them: "I am not your attorney. I am not AN attorney. I cannot offer you formal legal advice. Here's what I can tell you: _____. Oh, and by the way, you still need to talk to one of the four [real, licensed, official] attorneys." But yesterday in court and at the mediation I went to, I got mistaken, not once but twice, for being an official attorney. That's one mistake I don't mind, and besides, give it a year and it won't be. (I'm so excited!)

But I'm telling you, there's never a dull moment. Today I got yelled at by a client about how I and my coworkers need to "have integrity," etc., etc. (comes with the territory in the legal field, but girlfriend, please!), worked on a custody case, and got assigned to prep for a trial for a huge--and I do mean huge--medical malpractice case. Obviously I can't talk about what the case is actually about, but I've been assigned to research all the medical issues to determine what the actual standard of care was in the given situation, and how the doctors deviated from the standard of care, and to basically become a go-to expert in the firm on all the medical and scientific issues in the case. Working on all these personal injury cases has made me really appreciate all those biology and anatomy classes from high school, because believe me, they're coming in handy, especially when I'm given an assignment like the one I got last week: go through all the client's medical bills, and make your best determination as to what bills actually resulted from the injury/ accident, and what bills were entirely unrelated. Sounds pretty simple, but I was doing a lot of Googling to figure out what resulting medical conditions relate to what kinds of physical trauma and injury.

Law school is great and all, and I am not one of those people who supports ditching the whole institution in favor of just passing the bar exam, but I have to say that I have learned more in the past two weeks than I probably have in the past 2 years of school--BUT, that said, I couldn't be doing what I'm doing now without what I've learned from my classes. But there is no better way to really learn jurisdiction than to have to sit down and figure out what court, in what county, you can actually file an action in (and trust me, it is not that easy to know). There's no better way for me to reinforce what I learned in civil lawsuits than to actually have to figure out how to write a pleading in such a way that it would survive a 12(b)(6) motion, or to learn the rules of evidence than to have to determine if a certain expert witness would pass the Daubert standard. And I use my domestic relations class constantly, mostly with working on child support and custody issues.

So, I never really know exactly what I'm doing and I've had to get used to feeling stupid about 47 times a day, but hopefully eventually it will become like second nature. And this week I got such a great compliment from someone in the office: She said, "Your clients are going to absolutely love you, because you just make people feel so at ease and they just light up when they talk to you." I sure hope that's true!

Done.

I am DONE with my second year of law school. 2/3 of the way there! Everyone says that 2L is the year they "work you to death," and I don't know whether that's true or not, but I can honestly say that I've worked harder this last semester than I ever have in my life, with the possible exception of my last couple months of college when I was finishing my thesis. So I feel good about being done and good about what I've accomplished, and I am promising myself not to stress out about grades. At least not yet. I won't get them for at least a month anyway, so I might as well enjoy being blissfully unaware. Besides, I feel good about my performance on all my exams, and that's what matters at the moment.

Yesterday was my chores and errands day, and suffice it to say that I got my to-do list down from three pages to one by this morning: pay credit card bills, do laundry, turn in various forms to various people, return rented textbooks at UPS, clean, donate stuff to Goodwill, return library books, catch up on emails, etc.

And now I have 11 days of a hard-earned vacation before I start work. First stop: Chicago to see Lauren! Lauren and I were roommates for two years at W&L (I know, same name. It got confusing for people). But I have not seen her since a couple months after graduation--almost two years--and I absolutely cannot wait.

You know you're a real adult when you're flying into O'Hare airport by yourself and your mother isn't entirely freaking out. (Or maybe she is and just hasn't said so). I'll be sure to post pictures when I come back!

Study Break Musings

I never want to take three law school exams in four days again in my entire life! It's pretty exhausting/ miserable. And I still have one left on Tuesday and a paper to finish.

But there's been some silver linings during this crazy week, like:

• amazing conversations about gender equality, race relations, religion, and other stuff that matters the day before one of my exams.
• fitting 5,014 words on my one-page, front-side-only cheat sheet allowed for my domestic relations exam . . . winning
• nude flats from Target for only $12 . . . shoes for the office this summer.
• skinny vanilla lattes and study sessions at Starbucks that turn into laugh sessions.
• going to the new Goodwill that I've never been to before, the one that looks like people went on shopping sprees at Target and then donated their stuff
• having a few free moments to finally do some serious, much-needed journaling (those moments where you finally put into words something you've needed to write about for years . . . that's what I'm talking about).
• telling a friend, who I've never talked about matters of faith with before, that I'm a Christian, and having her say, "Oh, that's what I thought."
• Having a friend who comes by my apartment to drop off a double chocolate cupcake to brighten my intellectual property study marathon (by the way, random fact for you: The craziest thing I've learned in intellectual property so far is that someone actually tried to patent a system where people would use color-coded bracelets to indicate to the world whether they were single or not so as to "limit the embarrassment of rejection"! Yes. This is a thing--look it up!)

Counting down the days till 2L is done and I have a little vacation time before work! Ok my blog break is over . . . back to the books.

Halfway There

2 exams down, 2 to go! I finished my take-home exam for statutory law yesterday and it was HARD. It was probably the most comprehensive, integrative written work I've done so far in law school, incorporating statutory provisions, administrative regulations, contract law, constitutional law, procedural rules, and a whole lot of other stuff in one 12-page motion for my hypothetical client. Then this morning I had my final for wills, trusts, and intestate succession. The questions themselves weren't hard exactly, but it was literally impossible to finish in 3 hours. I don't think anyone finished. We had 9 short essays and three long essays, and those just aren't all getting done in a 3-hour period. This one didn't really seem to be about how much you knew so much as how well you could strategize to earn the most points in the least amount of time--so a couple of the harder questions or issues I pretty much skipped over entirely. I figured if I wasn't going to have time to finish anyway, I'd rather spend my time answering the questions that I was sure I had the right answer to.

So anyway, after my 4:14am bed time last night (and 6am wake-up call today), I am pretty pooped. I tried to take a nap this afternoon but it was one of those "too tired to sleep" occasions and it didn't really work out. I should be studying right now for domestic relations but I just can't look at another book right now. So, I'm aiming for a good night's rest tonight and starting fresh tomorrow. Maybe if I study really hard in the morning I'll take myself out to a movie tomorrow afternoon. A girl's got to have a break once in awhile, right?

And blog readers, this is a really random addendum to this rambling post but I just want to take this chance to tell you all how much I really appreciate you all. I know who some of you are, and others I don't know. But I'm so grateful that you let me share this crazy law school life with you and that you keep coming back to read my posts. It is my hope--and in fact my prayer--that my musings on life and what God is teaching me during this season in my life will reach you when and how you may need them, and will be a blessing to your life. Thank you for reading!

I have set the Lord always before me. Because He is at my right hand, I will NOT be shaken.

 --Psalm 16:8

Finals Time

As of yesterday, I am FINALLY done with classes, so I have a full, undisturbed day to prepare for exams today. It is such a relief to be done because by the last couple weeks of the semester, you get to the point when all you want to do is actually study for your exams, but every time you sit down to get something done, you have another class to go to. So, classes are done done done and it feels so good.

I have today, tomorrow, and Sunday to prep for a whirlwind week of exams. Monday at 9am I get a copy of my statutory law take-home final, which is due at noon Tuesday and requires me to write a 12-page motion to dismiss (oops! don't know how to do that) based on statutory provisions I'll be given. I've been told to expect it to take me by far the better part of the 27 hours I have to take it. So, Tuesday afternoon will be last-minute studying for my exam in wills, trusts, and estates, basically described like this: 9 short answer questions, average of 15 topics that have to be discussed in each short answer, plus 3 long essay questions, average of 30-40 topics that have to be mentioned in each, all in 3 hours. (Not exaggerating about the topics, by the way--the short answer we discussed in class had 15 components--you need to talk about testamentary freedom, default takers, incorporation by reference, revocable trusts, the intestacy statutes, transfers to minors, ERISA, the advance directives, custodian accounts, and the pension plans, among other things. Don't know what all that stuff is? Well, neither do I, so it's all good.) Then a week from today I have my domestic relations exam. That's a little more run-of-the-mill, with everything about marriage, divorce, child support, custody, alimony, etc., but it has its own challenges (anybody know what the putative spouse doctrine is? How about condonation? Or a qualified domestic relations order?) Then after that exam, it's on to studying intellectual property like there's no tomorrow because I haven't exactly kept up with that material over the term. That one is on May 7th, May 8th I'm revising my appellate brief for writing group all day, and then I will be DONE and flying to Chicago to see one of my college BFFs. I can't wait!

Dealing with the "Deal With It" Pile

I don't know about you, but I have a huge "deal with it" pile most of the time--partly a literal pile, in the sense that I seem to always have an enormous stack of paperwork and mail to be organized and filed, and partly a metaphorical one--all those stressful "to do's" that never seem to get done and languish on my to do list for weeks, just waiting for me to have the courage to tackle them. Yes, courage, because I don't put off the simply unpleasant things as much as the stressful things--having important make-or-break conversations, sending out professional emails where I'm worried about the response I'll receive, applying for jobs, taking care of finances, etc.

But yesterday, I decided that it was time to Deal With It. First, I was already pretty motivated because of all the extra time I now have because of the competition being done. Next, I decided that I need to free up as much time as I possibly can for studying for finals. And on a side note, doing too much is a real pride issue for me that God has been working on my heart about. I like feeling like Superwoman and making myself out to be the girl who can handle everything and multitask and juggle responsibilities like no other. To me, "I don't know how you handle everything" is a bigger compliment than it really should be. But I can't be Superwoman right now, not like I ever could anyway! And while I really hate saying no and relinquishing responsibilities because I struggle with feeling like it's a sign of weakness, God is slowly but surely teaching me that sometimes, I have to do that and He's asking me to do that.

So, I emailed people at my job in the admissions office and told them that I just wouldn't be able to work anymore this semester because I need time to study. As I knew they would be, they were very understanding, and just like that, I had another 6 hours a week freed up. From there, everything started falling into place, everything I've neglected to deal with in the past few weeks. I emailed the firm where I'm working this summer and confirmed that A) I still have a job (huge sigh of relief), and B) I will start work on May 20th. I had an important conversation with a friend about an issue I've been putting off forever because I've been worried about it damaging our friendship. But as I should have predicted, she was so kind and understanding about it. I sent out a bunch of other emails that had been building up, finished up my FAFSA to get financial aid for next year, applied for some additional loan money to help me with housing deposits and such for the summer, got my eyebrows and lips waxed, got gas, deep cleaned my bathroom, and returned my library books.

Once I got even one of those things done, it was just such a relief that I wanted to keep plowing through all those things that have piled up for so long. I mean, I know exactly why I've put off most of those things: because I'm worried about how they're going to turn out. I had not dealt with the financial aid because I was worried I wouldn't be able to get the loan I needed. I hadn't emailed the firm because I was freaked out that there would be some glitch with me working there that they would tell me about last minute. I hadn't talked to my friend because I was concerned she'd be upset about a decision I'd made. But as I just did one thing after another, I felt more and more relieved going through my day. Every single one of those things that I've literally been on the verge of losing sleep over turned out to be not a big deal after all.

Moral of the story? Just do it because it probably won't be nearly as bad as you're making it out to be. And I need to learn how to relinquish some of the control, how to be ok with saying I can't, and how to stop identifying so much with everything I DO and start learning that I don't have to do everything and be everything. And neither do you.

Catching Up on Life

Y'all: I HAVE MY LIFE BACK!!! Meaning, I am finally done with Moot Court and will no longer have to spend every night in practice plus countless more hours every week researching constitutional law and the Defense of Marriage Act. We had our competition yesterday and today, and while my team didn't make it to the finals, I am so so proud of everyone. We ALL gave the best arguments we've ever given this weekend. There's nothing quite like the adrenaline rush of getting up in front of the judges, knowing you know your stuff, and being able to respond to whatever questions they throw your way. Our case was based on the real arguments being heard before the Supreme Court these past couple weeks concerning the constitutionality of DOMA. Our competition rules prohibited us from listening to or reading any of the real oral arguments, so now that it's done, my teammates were like, "I can't wait to go listen to the actual arguments!" Sorry, not me--after pouring everything I've got into this for three months, I'm not sure I ever want to hear about DOMA again! But I'll take a break for awhile and I'm sure sometime I'll check those arguments out.

 

This is us. These people are like family now (I mean, I've spent tons more time with them since January than I have with my actual family!)

 

Anyway, I could not be happier that it is done. Don't get me wrong, I have learned so much and it was so worth it to do this competition, but I'm ready to once again have time for my life, like studying for exams in a few weeks. School, sleep, and pretty much everything else has been put on the back burner for this competition, and I need to get back in balance.

 

I feel like this is going to be a long rambling blog post, but I just feel like there is so much I want to catch my readers up on (there's also a TON of blog posts I've been wanting to write but just haven't had the chance to put them in words yet, so hopefully there will be some good stuff coming soon). Here's some other things that have been going on with me:

 

The law review book that my article got published in finally went to press! I got 30 little booklets with just my article in them, as well as one copy of the full edition that included it. So that was pretty exciting to see what I wrote in print:

 

 

I got to spend a day over spring break with my lovely best friend, Anna, in Asheville:

She has lived in South Korea since 2010, and this is only the second time I've gotten to see her since then, so any time I get with her is pretty precious! As usual, we talked and talked and talked--and talked some more--about absolutely everything: our love lives or the lack thereof, my school, her job, future plans, philosophy, God, psychology, American culture, Korean culture, and what's going on the Supreme Court today (somehow that seems to be our usual list of topics). We also went to some thrift stores, driving around a lot more than was really necessary because I kept missing my turns because we were too absorbed in the conversation. And going back to one of our favorite activities from high school, we went to the mall and tried on endless dresses and took some photos of ourselves in our favorites. Here's mine (love the dress, it's from Charlotte Russe):

 

Anna and I had lunch at my favorite restaurant in Asheville, this cute little hard-to-find place called Tomato Jam Cafe. This is their amazing chicken salad sandwich with goat cheese and cranberry mustard: 

 

 

 

And she brought me a gift bag of Korean goodies! :)

 

The rest of spring break (well, the part when I wasn't at school getting ready for the competition) I mostly just hung out with Mom and Dad, relaxed, watched some movies, worked on some class outlines, did some pleasure reading, etc. I finished John Grisham's book The Confession (very good but missing the plot twist I was expecting. Oh well, I can't blame the book for not ending the way I hoped it would!) Speaking of reading, I just put in holds at the local library for about 10 books now that I'll finally be able to do some regular reading again--I can't wait.

 

Anyway, here's what's on the agenda for the next few weeks: study for exams, get ready for my summer job, finish some law review assignments, and also try to relax and enjoy the spring weather we're finally just starting to have. Thanks for reading!

Make Time.

So, here's my hopefully inspirational thoughts for this week:

I don't have time to blog.

I don't have time to exercise.

I don't have time to eat healthy.

I don't have time to read intellectually stimulating books.

I don't have time to keep my apartment clean.

I don't have time to read the Bible and pray regularly.

And I'm guessing you don't either. We all have huge commitments and demands on our time, whether it's jobs, school, children, our families, volunteer work, or something else. In my case, I spend about 60 hours a week, and often more, reading cases, preparing oral arguments, doing my work-study job, editing manuscripts, getting ready for meetings, writing papers, preparing for exams, reading, reading, and reading some more. That's just regular law school life, and I would assume that many of you readers have very similar demands on your time no matter what your main responsibilities are.

And I so often fall into the trap of just saying "I don't have time": no time to do any of the things I mentioned earlier, things that are really important to me, good for me, and/ or necessary for keeping my life running smoothly. But it's occurred to me lately: so what? So what if I don't have time? I never have enough time in my day. There will always be an excuse available if I choose to rely on one, and I'm kind of tired of settling for my typical excuses and ready to be better. If you wait till you have time, it will never happen. Make it happen anyway. Go to the gym anyway. Spend some time in prayer anyway. Just do it anyway.

I don't know exactly what this will look like for you, or even what it will look like for me, since I'm just now really starting to make a concerted effort to fit in the Really Important Things no matter how busy I am, regardless of the fact that my Moot Court competition is this Friday and I have an important paper due Thursday. For me, today it meant that I spent 20 minutes running the stairs in my 10-story apartment building even though the day was too jam-packed to make it to the gym. It looked like me coming home from Moot Court practice at 9pm and baking sweet potatoes and cooking brown rice and ground turkey to have food ready for healthy meals the next couple days. It may mean spending less time online to squeeze out a few minutes for prayer, or delegating or rearranging some tasks to get work done as efficiently as possible so that truly important things get done. I am ready to stop settling for less than my best, to stop making excuses, and to stop acting like a busy schedule is a reason to avoid taking care of my home, body, mind, and spirit.

You're always going to be too busy. Just do it. Make time.

Ten Reasons . . .

. . . why this week was great:

 

1) law school charity auction last night! The theme was "decadent white party." So fun, AND we raised a lot of money for two children's charities.

 

 

 

2) Both of my classes were canceled this afternoon. So, after several failed plans to see this movie, I finally got to see Safe Haven this afternoon (and it was really good. I'd definitely recommend it).

 

3) I got to have spicy curry and catch up on all the law school gossip at the best Thai restaurant in town tonight with one of my funniest friends.

 

4) I found some great new blogs that are inspiring me to write more . . . like, the kind that are so interesting that you dig way back into the archives to read everything this person has ever written.

 

5) Moot Court practice is going well. And I think my team is going to manage to be ready for our competition in a month.

 

6) I discovered the art of the 20-minute dance workout in my living room when I really don't feel like driving over to the gym.

 

7) I had some rare free time to lay on my couch and read a book.

 

8) Spring is in the air. Finally.

 

9) I got a card from the child I sponsor in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Definitely going on my fridge.

 

10) I got both my ABA Journal and Student Lawyer magazines today (nerdy reading material for the weekend!)

 

Happy Friday, y'all!



 



Mini-Vacation to the Mountains

This week has been eventful.

My team and I FINALLY submitted our Moot Court brief. And now we have the entire weekend off before we start bench practices for oral arguments. I definitely got some experience having to write a paper in support of something I don't believe in at all, but I am really glad that I get to present the opposite side later in oral arguments.

My computer came down with what IT told me was practically a record-setting number of viruses. But thankfully, it's all fixed now. I'm thinking that pretty much everything that was wrong with my laptop over the past month--the fact that my email wasn't really working, the ads that would pop up everywhere, the way Microsoft Word would shut down if I typed too fast--might have all had something to do with these viruses, because all of those problems are gone now.

I called about a gazillion people with our admissions recruiting phone campaign.

I met this sweet older couple at my new church on Sunday who took me out to lunch, and we shared our stories with each other over chicken and sweet tea. They told me that they've "adopted" some law students in the past and helped them have a bit of a home away from home, and I definitely got the feeling that they'd be willing to do the same for me.

I participated in the closing argument competition and got a lot more practice with how to make your final impression on the jury when you try a case.

I went to (some of) my classes. Not all of them, because for about a day and a half, my Moot Court team and I were camped out in the student lounge almost round-the-clock, hunched over energy drinks and packs of peanut M&M's, writing and cite-checking in a desperate last-minute mission to get our paper done.

I researched a bunch of law scholarships and writing competitions and got motivated to find some law firms or companies or memorial funds to pay for my 3L year.

I managed to go to the gym a couple times. Life lesson of the week: Don't go to the gym with your friend who's been in the military unless you want to do pushups until your arms are about to fall off! I guess what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, though!

And now, in about twelve short hours, I am headed back to my North Carolina mountains to visit the family this weekend. :) It is much-needed. I have been working a LOT and am so excited to breathe for a bit. I am planning to not check my email, or open a book, for the entire weekend.  Well, at least not a law-related book. Here's the heaviest reading I plan to do (and of course, some serious catching up on life in my journal):

 

Looking forward to some of the usual activities with Mom and Dad: hitting up the best thrift stores in Asheville, talking and talking and catching up on everything, watching some Big Bang Theory/ Criminal Minds/ HGTV, and just taking it easy.

 

Hope y'all have wonderful weekends!

Rest Day.

This is my first day "off" in two weeks and I am already *loving* it. That may not seem like a long time, but trust me, it feels like a long time! I've been going full speed ahead and having long days of work, classes, studying, meetings, competition practices, errands, and editing projects. Every time I "skip" a weekend and don't get a chance to breathe because I'm too busy, I'm reminded that there is definitely a reason why we're not supposed to go more than 7 days without stopping to rest! Have a Sabbath, if you will. A pause, a chance to be still.

Last night was my first full night of sleep in about as long and I feel SO refreshed this morning. I really can't function for too long on 3-4 hours of sleep a night, but that's exactly what I've been trying to do. This week I was assigned a manuscript to edit on Wednesday that was due yesterday, which was a much quicker turnaround than usual, and my Moot Court team is scrambling to get our brief completed in the next couple days. But I have to meet those deadlines whether I get to sleep or not, so I just have to do what I can!

But anyway, today is my day to go to the gym, clean, run errands, do some healthy cooking for the week, etc. And I'm taking myself out to a movie matinee this afternoon because I feel like treating myself a little bit! And in case you're wondering the results of this week's fitness challenge: mile run in 11:50. I know--that's worse than last week and this could get really embarrassing if my time keeps going up instead of getting better! But next week is a new week and I'm determined to keep working on it. I could have just been not feeling up to it this week.

OK, I'm off to go make my new favorite salad ever for lunch--spinach, lemon-butter salmon, goat cheese, strawberries, blueberries, and almonds, topped with a lemon juice/ olive oil/ honey dressing. SO good. Thanks for reading!

Florida in February :)

So this weekend, my friend/ teammate and I, plus our two coaches, went down to Fort Lauderdale to compete in an ABA regional "client counseling" competition. (Basically, the idea is that you and your partner are acting as attorneys meeting with a new "client" for the first time, played by an actor. You're scored on how well you elicit information from the client, build a rapport with them, explain the relevant law to them, and help them to come up with appropriate solutions.)

We had a really good time, and we ended up making it to the semifinals before we got eliminated. I think we were all pretty happy with how we did given that we only had a few short weeks to practice, prepare, and learn the appropriate areas of substantive law. Plus, it was definitely fun to take a little mini-vacation to Florida in February. I could not go to law school down there. Seeing palm trees out my classroom window and knowing the beach is a short drive away would be too distracting! So here are some pictures from the trip:

Lake right outside the law school. Talk about distraction. 

 

This picture totally cracks me up.

 

OK, this one turned out a little better.

Beach!!

 



At our post-competition seafood dinner by the beach

 

 



 

 

 

We ended up getting back from FL late Saturday night. And as of Sunday, I have a new job for next school year: managing editor of the Law Review. I know it will be a lot of work, but I'm really excited to have that opportunity to represent my school, and I have fantastic people to work with who are also new members of the editorial board for next year.

 

So all in all, a very busy but very good weekend! Thanks for reading!



Evidence of God's Care

As of Friday at noon when I finished my last final exam for the semester, I am now officially halfway done with law school! And to tell the truth, it's gone by pretty fast, so I feel like it really won't be that long until I am a full-fledged attorney.

My last final, for my evidence class, was on Friday, and it was 50 multiple choice questions on the Federal Rules of Evidence. I already knew it was going to be a really difficult test, and because it was my last final coming at the end of three very busy weeks, I was really exhausted and overwhelmed trying to prepare for it last week. I also had a paper due Friday for another class that I was trying to finish, so I was trying to study as much as I could for this exam but it was pretty hard to do. I was just praying a lot that God would give me wisdom and insight on how best to prepare for the exam and to use my study time.

My professor had told our class a couple times during the semester that it would be a good idea to do the multiple-choice review questions in the back of the book. By the beginning of last week, I still hadn't done those questions, even though I had reviewed all the reading and made a study outline. Well, starting on Tuesday or Wednesday, I started feeling like I HAD to do those questions and that even if I didn't have time to do anything else to study, I needed to do those questions first. I had a strong impression that they were more important than studying my outline or reviewing the reading assignments.

I had to spend most of Wednesday and Thursday writing my paper for my other class, but Thursday night, when the feeling that I had to do those questions in the book hadn't gone away, I sat down to tackle them. The answers were in the book, and so I was able to check them as I went along. There were 200 in all, but I only managed to do 150 before I just fell asleep--it was 2am and the exam was in 7 hours and I just couldn't keep my eyes open anymore.

So on Friday morning, I got to the exam and start reading through it. It didn't take me long to realize that, with the exception of a couple names being changed, about half the exam questions were taken verbatim from ones in the book I had looked at mere hours before! Because of that, I was able to speed through questions that I otherwise would have really struggled with. I've never been so glad to have followed a professor's advice!

After I got home that day, I was flipping through the last 50 questions in the book--the ones that I didn't get to because I couldn't stay awake anymore. Maybe one or two of the questions I didn't get to had been on the exam, but literally all of the rest of them were from the section I managed to finish. To make a long story short, I was totally overwhelmed by God's concern for my life and the way He even cares about helping a tired law student with her evidence final! He definitely answered my prayers for wisdom on how to study!

I pray that YOU have felt His hand of grace in your life lately as well.

6 Days Till Break.

I can't sleep, so I figured I may as well write something instead! It's always active around this apartment building on weekend nights, but the past two nights, it's been sounding like my neighbor is preparing for a musical or something. At 3:00 in the morning. (And I'm resisting the urge to wake up at 6:30am and start blasting the Backstreet Boys). It's making me about want to go to a hotel to get ready for the rest of my finals--you know, Paper Chase-style. Although I'm not really sure I could sleep anyway, since my brain is crammed with civil procedure and statutes and case law from bioethics and the nuances of the Federal Rules of Evidence. My bioethics final is due Friday, and the evidence final is that same day, and then I'll be done for a whole blissful month.

My friends and I are all in that intense, stressed-out exam mode, but as I talked about with a friend yesterday, we're going to miss law school when it's done so we should resolve to enjoy it while we're here, no matter how challenging it may seem.

This semester has really been a whirlwind in a lot of ways: taking on a lot of new activities, finding out more about what I really want to do and become, and finding out a lot more about who my true friends are, what my Christian community here looks like, and where I fit in at this place in my life. It's been a growing experience and I think I really have learned a lot. At least I hope I have, because I still have two exams to tackle. :)

 

"In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength."

Isaiah 30:15